Metro Matters; Out of the Park, More Baseballs Than Benefits

By JOYCE PURNICK

Published: October 11, 2004

NEW YORK, ignored in the presidential race, has its own tussle going on -- not over candidates, but over City Hall's plans for a stadium and expanded convention center on Manhattan's far West Side.

The two sides are fighting fiercely, with the pro-stadium forces saying the proposed complex would generate jobs, promote the city's economy, reclaim a shabby neighborhood and boost New York's Olympics bid. The anti-stadium side says the plan would worsen traffic and pollution, waste resources and pose a long-term fiscal risk.

The arguments are familiar, rehearsed in every debate over the proposed sports stadium, and never fully resolved. But New York is lucky. The last administration built two minor league baseball stadiums: KeySpan Park in Coney Island and the Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George in Staten Island.

No two stadium projects are alike. The plan for the far West Side is substantially more complex than the plans for two relatively small baseball parks. But the Brooklyn Cyclones and the Staten Island Yankees have been around for four seasons. Worth taking a look, it would seem.

In brief, the Mets' Brooklyn farm team is thriving, the Yankees' farm team is struggling, and neither has stimulated the kind of economic renewal that their optimistic City Hall champions predicted. Former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani pushed hard for the ballparks, with his top administration officials contending that each stadium would improve its community, draw new visitors and serve as an economic catalyst.

Coney Island has improved in recent years. The Stillwell Avenue subway station is getting a facelift, and the boardwalk has toned up a little. But thanks to the stadium? KeySpan Park itself remains surrounded by weedy vacant lots. The Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, counseling patience, says he has gotten feelers from developers.

In Staten Island, the St. George ferry terminal is being rebuilt, a Sept. 11 memorial stands across the road from the ballpark, along a handsome, publicly financed waterfront promenade. Nearby Bay Street is gentrifying. Again, because of the stadium? Several civic and political leaders do not see a direct connection.

Economists have long argued that stadiums don't help their immediate neighborhoods much. ''They may redistribute economic activity within a region, but don't increase it,'' said Ronnie Lowenstein, director of the city's Independent Budget Office.

Andrew M. Alper, director of the city's Economic Development Corporation, sees the stadiums as essential elements in revitalization. ''I think what we have with all of these facilities -- the Mets and Yankees teams, the convention facility on the West Side -- they are part of overall redevelopment. No building by itself is sufficient to revitalize a neighborhood.''

ANOTHER invariable question is whether the investments in various projects are worth it, and whether the estimates hold up. Each of the two publicly financed minor league ballparks was first projected to cost $20 million, but the Brooklyn stadium cost twice that, and the Staten Island stadium cost $52.75 million, including $12.75 million for the land, according the Economic Development Corporation. That was part of an overall $71 million waterfront plan in Giuliani-friendly Staten Island.

Ticket sales for the 6,800-seat Staten Island ballpark averaged 4,900 in the 2004 season, while the Cyclones, with more than 7,500 seats, often have a standing-room only crowd and sell and average of about 7,900 tickets a game. Only in its first season did the Yankees team draw enough fans -- 125,000, not counting absent ticket-holders -- to meet a threshold that triggers rent payments; the team pays other fees to the city. The team's chief operating officer, Josh Getzler, said it had hurt that 7 of 38 games this summer were rained out, and that his team is ranked last in its division; the Cyclones ranked first.

But more than winning matters -- especially location. The Coney Island ballpark is near a subway station and the Belt Parkway, making it easily accessible.

Getting to the St. George ballpark can be more difficult, and since the island's population is only 457,000 (compared with Brooklyn's nearly 2.5 million), attracting fans from elsewhere is essential, said Mr. Getzler, who was optimistic about doing so.

Staten Island and Brooklyn love their new ball fields, use them when possible for public school games and concerts, already consider them local landmarks. Would they have loved spending that money for something else? A theoretical question, but one worth asking now and again.